From UNDRR Reports to Event Records: Schema-Constrained LLM Extraction of Georeferenced Disasters

Abstract:Disaster-risk-reduction archives describe hazard events in prose that databases such as EM-DAT (Delforge et al., 2025) cannot ingest directly. We present an LLM pipeline that generates candidate georeferenced event records using a controlled hazard vocabulary and fixed schema, retaining evidence for review. Applied to 10,000 documents from PreventionWeb, the knowledge hub managed by UNDRR, it produced 3,572 records from 1,913 documents across 24 hazard types and resolved 81% of location mentions to OpenStreetMap geometries. On 171 human-positive document windows from a stratified 217-document reference set, GPT-5 achieved 86.0% pooled attribute $F_1$, versus 44.2% for the spaCy-gazetteer baseline. Evaluation pools hazard families, location strings, and event years within documents, without assessing their assignment to individual events. GPT-5.4 ranked highest among ten LLMs (86.6% $F_1$). Verbatim evidence occurrence was 72.0% for GPT-5 and 47.2% for GPT-5.4, measuring textual traceability without establishing attribute support. We report production failure modes and automated label and location-rule compliance checks. Prompts, schema, and outputs will be released for adaptation to national reporting archives.

Computation and Language (cs.CL); Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI); Information Retrieval (cs.IR)

arXiv:2609.23853 [cs.CL]

(or arXiv:2609.23853v1 [cs.CL] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2609.23853 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)

arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website.

Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them.

Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs.